Genre: Arts, History & Current Affairs

Published: 1 August 1997

A Walk in the Woods

The Appalachian Trail is the longest continuous footpath in the world, stretching along the East Coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine, through some of the most arresting and celebrated landscapes in America. At the age of forty-four, in the company of his friend Stephen Katz, Bill Bryson set off to hike through the vast tangled woods which have been frightening sensible people for three hundred years. Facing bears, bobcats, savage weather, disease-bearing tics, poisonous plants and the odd chuckling murderer, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness to achieve a lifetime’s ambition – not to die outdoors.

"Bryson weaves essential bits of American history throughout this 1999 memoir, introducing us to tiny mining towns we'll probably never visit and leading us through vast forests we didn't know were still there. And when, after walking hundreds of miles, Bryson decides to drive part of the trail, we understand. After all, he's a regular guy like us — albeit, a smarter, more curious, Pulitzer Prize–winning version." - TIME, 'Top 100 non-fiction books'